Supervisors vote to settle on cell phone emission levels

San Francisco moved closer to dropping its fight against the wireless industry to require that cell phone retailers post radiation warnings.

In 2010, the Board of Supervisors passed then-Mayor Gavin Newsom’s legislation that tried to force phone vendors to post in their stores the level of radiation emitted by their devices. But the cell phone industry fought back hard, and a federal appeals court decided last year that first-of-its-kind legislation violated first amendment rights.

So at Tuesday’s board meeting, most supervisors held their nose and voted to approve a settlement promising that the city would agree to a permanent injunction against the ordinance, in exchange for the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association to wave their claims to attorney’s fees.

“I am for pushing the envelope on something as important as this but I think the legal reality is such that if we do not approve this settlement, we’re talking about having to pay half a million in legal fees,” Supervisor David Campos said. “It’s a very tough situation, but the last thing I want is to have the general fund give half a million dollars to lawyers in this case.”

The long-term impacts of mobile phone use on the brain is still a hotly debated scientific topic. The ordinance would have ordered retails to display posters and hand out fact sheets to cell phone buyers notifying customers that the World Health Organization identifies the phones’ emissions as a “possible carcinogen.”

Though the CTIA said such warnings could be misleading and that emissions are already federally regulated, many health activists were not happy with the supervisors’ decision.

The California Brain Tumor Association held a rally outside City Hall before the vote, and a letter to the board from several doctors said “people have a right to know about ways to use phones more safely.”

Supervisor John Avalos was the lone opposition vote.

“I can’t support this settlement based on a ruling that I think was way too extreme,” he said.